The little Shepard - book 1
by Romice98
Summary: What if Shepard's youth had gone a little... differently? What if she had a daughter and a secret? What if the two were connected?
1. Chapter 1 - An end is always a beginning

Kira was standing on the dock's platform, waiting for her mother's ship to arrive. She was excited, so much that she had barely slept the previous night. She hadn't seen her mother for almost a year, though she has heard much about her. Of course she has, after all her mum was Commander Shepard.

Standing there, on the Citadel's docking bay, brought back many memories. When Kira first came here she was only 12 years old. Her mother had decided that spacer life wasn't good for a kid, and even less for a teenager so she enrolled her daughter at a multi-race school on the biggest and most important space station in the galaxy – the Citadel.

Since then Kira missed her mum, a lot. Before her move to the heart of known space, Kira and her mother were inseparable, except of course the time when the older Shepard went ashore for missions.

Other than that Kira was happy on the Citadel. She liked her peers no matter the race. Actually she got on with many aliens better that with most humans. Her friends were an interesting group. Actually, they weren't really a group. Kira hang out with each of them separately, as the rest wasn't fond of each other. Not surprising, considering they were salarian, asari, turian and krogan.

Her teachers were a totally different story. They really didn't like her. Not because she was a bad student, it was quite the opposite – she was the best in most classes and she knew it. Kira had a knack for learning languages and thus, she was the best in all the foreign language classed. She was already fluent asari, turian and salarian, could hold a conversation with a krogan and lately started to learn quarian.

She was the strongest human in biotics, only inferior to a few asari. She was good in hand to hand combat, of course the krogan were forbidden from participating alongside other races. Kira was first on the scoreboards in heavy pistols and in shotguns.

For the things she sucked at… she could hold a sniper rifle and that was about it. She was also crap at assault rifles. The little Shepard didn't take after her mom when it came to tech stuff. She used her omni-tool mostly for e-mail and extranet.

Kira was brought back to the present by the SSV Normandy slowing down to dock. It didn't take long until Commander Jane Shepard of the Alliance, the first human Spectre came out of the decontamination chamber.

Walking behind her was a couple of people in standard Alliance armor. One was a man, dark-haired and brown-eyed. The other was a woman, also with dark hair and eyes, a bit Latino looking.

The Commander looked like she always did; both strong and beautiful, her fiery red hair matching the red N7 stripe on her armor and Kira's own hair. The Spectre's lips curled in a half smile as her green eyes focused on her 18 year old daughter.

Kira smiled sarcastically as she mock-saluted. She wasn't officially part of any military force, although one of her teachers suggested that C-Sec had their eyes on her.

„Commander Shepard" she said in a too-serious voice.

„At ease soldier" the older Shepard chuckled „Come here" she said as she opened her arms. Kira laughed and threw herself into her mother's hug. They stayed that way for a few minutes.

"I missed you, kid." Jane said when the two of them stopped hugging.

"Yea, right mum." Kira countered "I don't think you had time to miss anything lately, what with you becoming a hero of the human race. And may I remind you that you didn't even find time to visit after your Spectre Ceremony." All of that came out with more snark than she intended, but Kira couldn't help it, she was still annoyed at her mother.

"Kira… I'm sorry about that. It was a crazy couple of weeks. I barely had time to catch my breath, let alone call you." Jane said with a serious frown on her forehead. Kira just nodded, knowing anything that would have come out of her mouth would just hurt both of them equally. "Come on, I want you to come with me to Udina's office, we can talk more on the way."

"Why should I come? Isn't anything you're going to say highly classified?" The younger Shepard was confused. Her mother never offered to take her anywhere connected with her job.

"Actually, no. Plus, I have a surprise for you kiddo" Jane smiled warmly toward her daughter. She also dismissed the two members of her crew, telling them to "go get everything on the list done".

With that they started moving through the Wards, towards the Presidium. Kira summarized her latest education progress, while her mother was just beaming with pride. Jane knew that her daughter did great in school, but it always felt amazing to hear just how awesome she was.

When they reached the human embassy Kira asked again if she should just stay outside, but her mother just waved her attempt off and told her to 'get her ass inside'. And so Kira went in and met the _lovely_ ambassador Udina and the slightly too formal, but not so annoying captain Anderson.

"What is she doing here, Shepard?" The ambassador sighed, mentioning his head toward Kira. He was obviously tired because of… _probably talking with the marine, but what do I know?_ He looked at Jane with annoyance, a lot of it.

"Well, ambassador, it's nice to see you again too." The human Spectre said with a grin. If there was one thing she loved doing, it was grinding Udina's gears. He just rolled his eyes in response "Now, getting to business, I want to use the Alliance's 'practical boot-camp' program to get a new party member for the Normandy." Udina's eyes narrowed, while Kira's immediately focused on the back of her mother's head.

"Well, you need to fill out the application, available on the…" He didn't get very far in his explanation, before Jane jumped in and cut him off with a voice not much louder, but way more authorative than his.

"Cut it out, Udina. You very well know I came here only, and I repeat only, to keep you in the loop. Either you put it as part of the program, or I just say 'hey, I'm a Spectre, so I can do whatever the fuck I want'. It is up to you." As Jane finished her rant, Kira's jaw was in the process of hitting the floor of the office. She never heard her mum on the job, so she didn't know just how persuasive _(or rather intimidating)_ she could be.

"Fine Shepard. Do what you want. You'll end up doing that no matter what I say." Udina sighed heavily, all the while rolling his eyes.

"Great! I see we have an understanding. Kira, come over here." Kira's mother gestured towards her, beaconing her to step forward. After she took a couple of steps, Jane started speaking again "Udina, you have any papers you need Kira to sign? Yes, alright. Come on kid, we have the galaxy to save."

After the documents were signed and files transferred they left the Ambassador's office, both Shepards smiling broadly, looking forward to working together.


	2. Chapter 2 - Goodbyes

**A/N:** Thank you for reading and reviewing, everybody! It has been brought to my attention that with the original birthdate of Shepard, she would have had Kira at 13. Since that, of course is not something I wanted to include in this story, Jane is 5 years older then in OT. That means she was born in 2149, was 16 when Kira was born and is 34 now, during ME1

I hope you enjoy the second chapter!

* * *

Their next stop was the CIA – Citadel Interspecies Academy – Kira's school and home for the last six years. She has lived here since she was 12 years old. Her mother sent her off to live on the Citadel, as she just got into the N7 training program. Being 28, Jane Shepard was one of the youngest candidates even admitted into the N7 ranks.

Kira needed somewhere to live and Jane decided an interspecies school would let her daughter grow up not to be as bigoted against alien as half the Alliance troops, who she hung around with while staying on the ships.

The mother and daughter arrived quickly at the CIA, as it was situated on the presidium, not too far from the Embassies. After some _way too long_ procedure of signing about a thousand papers by both Shepards, the pair went to Kira's dorm to pack up.

She had to grab her clothes and other important items. Kira was so happy and exited with the opportunity to work with her mother that she completely forgot about one simple truth.

Word travels fast in the Academy, and not 15 minutes into the packing process, the door to her room swung open and in through it went Nyxini (an asari whose dad was a krogan and it showed) and Berbok (an actual krogan), two of Kira's best friends.

Jane jumped, her combat instincts making her reach for her assault rifle, only for her to rein them in a split second later, when she saw that the asari was hugging the life out of her daughter.

"Nyx, you're going to break my neck with that hug." Kira choked out after a good 30 seconds of hugging her friend back. Nyxini could get a bit over emotional sometimes.

"Well, at least then you won't leave" Berbok chimed in, stating the obvious, like always.

Kira rolled her eyes at him, knowing full well the krogan hated that gesture."And what good is my corpse, huh big guy?" Berbok just groaned in response.

"Alright, alright, I'll stop choking you." Nyxini disentangled herself from around Kira's neck "Why didn't you tell us you were leaving?" A light blue glow started to form around the asari, as she got angrier. Kira knew she was safe, she saw what happens if her friend gets pissed and her current reaction was far from the extreme. "What, did you plan on disappearing into thin air?"

"I found out two hours ago, Nyx. I was going to pack and **then** go see you guys. How the hell did you two find out about this, anyway?" The younger Shepard had her suspicion about it, but wanted to hear it from the culprits themselves.

Not having to wait longer than a couple of seconds, Kira's suspicions got confirmed as another alien, this time a salarian, came through her door. The little room was starting to get crowded, as it was a single person dorm.

"You really don't know Kira? I thought you smarter than that." Jesant Elorn, her most science-y and tech-y friend started speaking in typical salarian fashion, about a mile a minute. "You are aware that hacking into CIA's database is my lunchtime pastime. Their firewalls are abhorrently out of date. Maybe I should propose some changes. They'd find out I hacked them. Bad idea, hacking illegal, would get kicked out. Maybe some anonymous post on the board, then." Kira had enough and decided to jump in while the salarian was taking a short, but much needed breath.

"Alright, that's enough, Jesant. You know I'm crap at tech. And yes, I did expect it was you, just wanted some confirmation" The younger Shepard rolled her eyes again, this time at all three of her friends. _Come to think of it, where is the last one of the pack?_ "Guys, I know you're not fans of Flavus, but please tell me you didn't keep him out of the loop." Kira aksed worried about her not-so-liked friend.

"Calm down, Red." Berbok said in an absolutely non-calming tone of voice "The suck-up said he needed to check the facts on his own. Goddamn turians." Kira could have sworn that the krogan would roll his eyes, if his biology and culture allowed such a gesture. Maybe he didn't hate her doing it so much after all.

"Right. Well, I'll just go find him after I finish packing." The young human sighed "Speaking of which, I should get back to it." Kira waved her hand in a 'get out of the way' manner, hoping her friends would get the message and let her pack her things in relative quiet. But it wasn't her lucky day.

"You were going to leave, just like that?! Not even an extranet message?" As if on cue, her turian friend came storming into the already crowded room. By now, the older Shepard has gone onto the small balcony overseeing the presidium, to give the kids some privacy to say their goodbyes and to get out of the way-too-crowded room.

"Nice to see you too, Flavus." Kira said, in the turian language, using her best smile, trying to calm him down a little. It didn't work.

"Don't pull that shit on me Kira. Transferring from the CIA takes at least 2 weeks of preparation and protocol, and you mean to tell me that you didn't find the time to tell me? And what is it with your files being 'classified'?" The turian was standing tall, over a head taller than her in fact, he was fuming with rage, his eyes squinted and his mandibles were tight against his jaw.

"It's… not so simple. I know, I'm sounding like a cheap vid, but hear me out, please. My mum, you know, Commander Shepard, has talked with the Alliance and managed to get me into an active duty schooling program." Kira sighed "That means, I'll be on an actual spaceship going on actual missions with one of the best human marines." She made a little dramatic pause to let that sink in. "I literary learned about it 4 hours ago, sorry I didn't come running to all of you guys the second I heard, but it was kind of overwhelming. Still is." As she finished her tirade she realized that all four of her friends were silently staring at her.

Nyx was the first to break the silence "Are you going to visit?" She said in such a hopeful voice, one that Kira hasn't heard her friend use before.

"Sure, when we have shore leave here, I'll come visit." This would be an easy promise to keep. Kira wasn't a social butterfly, but she appreciated the friends she had. They helped her get through the worst parts of her life, and she was awfully grateful to them for that. "I promise."

"Alright." Was all Nyx said in response. Kira understood, she too was sad that she had to leave her friends behind. But this adventure called to her unlike anything else before and she was certain she needed to follow that call.

"Hey, you do know I'm going to miss you all a shit-ton, right?" Kira sadly half-smiled as she said goodbyes to every member of their mismatched group.

* * *

After the goodbyes and about an hour of packing, the two Shepards stepped out of the CIA's door, each with a bag of Kira's belongings. With a one last look over her shoulder at her old life, Kira asked her mother "What now?"

"Well kiddo," Jane started with a smirk "you can't very well go groundside and fight the geth in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, right?" Kira nodded her head excitedly, already expecting what her mother would suggest, but still wanting to hear it from her "It's time for some shopping, then."

The two of them went to a commercial district in Zakera Ward, specializing in military equipment. First came armor. It took Kira half an hour just to convince the older Shepard, to allow her to buy a light set.

In her fighting style, Kira favored mobility and biotics, her barrier doing most of her defensive job. She needed to move around, which was much more difficult in a medium or heavy suit.

But, with some biotic flashing, the younger Shepard managed to persuade her mother to get her a Light Titan Armor, by Rosenkov Materials, modded with a Kinetic Buffer and a Medical Interface. The armor fit Kira like a glove, and allowed her to move smoothly, without interference. She couldn't wait to test it on the battlefield. _And test myself in an actual life or death situation, not just a combat sim._

Next came weapons. Here there was no need for argument, as Jane knew that her daughter specialized in shotguns accompanied by pistols, and was okay with that. In fact, she figured Kira's skills would compliment her team well, with her own obsession about sniper rifles.

They bought a brand new Tornado shotgun from Haliat Armory and also a Stiletto pistol from the same company. The weapons sat nicely in Kira's hands, unlike some of the training weapons in the CIA, and she was overall pleased with how the purchases turned out.

After having a late lunch at a café near their shopping venue, the newly equipped member of the Normandy arrived at the docks, along with the ship's Commanding Officer.

"Ready, kid?" Jane asked with a sympathetic smile. She knew getting to know new people was hard, even without the added burden of your mum being their and your boss.

"As ready as I can be. The sooner we move the sooner it will be over." Kira sighed "Let's go."

And so they moved to the entrance to the SSV Normandy, Kira's new home, school, workplace and everything in-between.


	3. Chapter 3 - A decision

**A/N:** Time to meet our first crew member. Also, a little flashback to Kira's past. Like always, Kira's thoughts are in italics.

The decontamination chamber wasn't anything new for Kira. She had been on many spaceships before and this was a standard procedure. Both war vessels and transport ships had used the exact same drill. Get in, stand still for a minute, get sprayed with anti-bacteria-and-who-knows-what-else spray, get out.

But this time, the decontamination chamber had more of a symbolic meaning to Kira. Similarly to when she first arrived at the Citadel, the whole procedure was the perfect moment to realize that the life she had before stepping into this little, grey room had just ended.

While 6 years ago the procedure meant separation from her mother, the only person in her life she has a chance to know for more than a year or two, this time the chamber was a homecoming. And like many of those, the moment felt bitter-sweet.

On the plus side, Kira was eager to be able to spend more time with her mum again. She missed her, plain and simple. Before the CIA, she never went without seeing her mother for more than the duration of a single groundside mission.

Also, the younger Shepard wanted to finally see some action. She grew up amongst soldiers who told her stories of adventures they encountered during missions. She couldn't wait to experience those herself.

But all coins have two sides and Kira was scared of the unknown. Unknown people, unknown planets and unknown duties awaited behind the door she had been staring at for the last 30 seconds.

The speaker in a corner of the room beeped a couple of times, alerting both Shepards to the end of the decontamination. _Time to face the music._

When Kira and Jane stepped out of the chamber an automated voice announced "Logged: The Commanding Officer is aboard. XO Pressly stands relived."

The two redheads stood in a long hallway. On their right, there seemed to be the CIC, like on most human ships. _At least the layout should be familiar. Nothing better than getting lost on your first day._

A male human voice sounded from their left, the cockpit of the Normandy. "Hey, Commander, welcome back! Ash and Kaidan said you were visiting someone on the Citadel?"

Jane turned around to the source of the voice, apparently the ship's pilot. "Yeah Joker, I was. And in addition, I brought back a new team member." Jane winked toward her daughter and led her towards the bridge.

The man in charge of piloting the ship, _Joker, wasn't it?_ , turned around in his chair. He looked Kira up and down, his eyes later returning to her mother. "I take it this is who you're talking about?" He pointed towards Kira with his thumb and Jane nodded her head. The pilot finally turned his focus toward the younger Shepard. "Nice to meet you. I'm Lieutenant Jeff Moreau," He said mockingly. "but you should really call me Joker, everyone here does."

 _Okay,_ Kira thought, _I can do informal greetings, I just have to try to sound natural_. "Hi. Umm… I'm Kira." _Yeah, real smooth girl, totally not sounding like a fifth-grader._ She mentally facepalmed. Kira was always better at interaction with aliens then humans, although she didn't really know why.

* * *

 _6 years ago_

Kira walked into the huge building, her hand in her mother's much bigger one. As they approached the front desk of the girl's new school, her mother leaned down to Kira's eyelevel.

"Kiddo, you should go, sit on that couch over there." Jane Shepard pointed toward a small sitting area. "This might take a while, no need for you to stand around bored, when you can just sit and play something on your omni-tool."

Kira nodded and went to sit on the soft couch. As she brought up her left forearm, an orange glow covered her skin. The omni-tool loaded her last viewed applications and the young girl powered up an old human game, remade for this model of omni-tools.

For a few minutes she changed the directions in which the virtual snake was moving, guiding it to eat as much as he could. Kira identified strongly with the permanent hunger the animal was feeling. Being a biotic, she couldn't remember a time she **wasn't** hungry.

After ten minutes of mindless swiping up, down, left and right, Kira noticed a pair of legs in her peripherals. She exited the app and lifted her sight to the owner of said legs.

There was a turian boy, somewhere around her age standing in front of her. He had green colony markings, vibrantly contrasting with his pale, almost white skin.

"Hi." Kira began the conversation resolutely. "Are you here to sign up for the Academy?" She smiled broadly up at him.

"No. I have been studying here for 3 years already." The turian answered matter of factly. "I assume that means you are new here though, right?" He motioned to the seat next to Kira, silently asking if he could sit there.

Kira nodded, both to the silent and voiced questions. "My mum is filling out the forms right over there." The girl pointed to the front desk, where Jane was leaning over a pile of datapads. "She told me the classes are conducted with members of all Citadel races, is that true?" She was curious. She has been homeschooled (or rather ship-schooled) before coming to the CIA.

"Yes. Well, maybe not all, we don't have any quarians for example, but they don't segregate us by race." Even if he was young, his voice already sounded quite authorative. Kira was almost certain his father was someone important, you don't just get that kind of voice without a good role model.

"That's interesting. I wonder how I'll like it." Kira always liked the few aliens she met, when she and her mother where on shore leave, but she didn't know how she'd get on with them in a school environment.

"I'm certain you will. The teachers are cool. Some kids too, but not all of them. You seem nice though."

"Thanks." The redhead blushed lightly. "Maybe you can show me around, when the forms are done and I move into my room?" Kira asked, hopefully. She didn't know anyone here and needed to make friends. This could be a good start.

"Sure, no problem. They'll probably tell you were the mess is, find me there in… about two hours?"

"Okay." _He is so nice. I wonder if everybody here is like this._

"Alright, see you then. My name is Flavus, by the way." With that he stood up and left.

* * *

The chuckling of the Normandy's pilot brought Kira back to the present.

"Alright, I see you're new to this whole military thing, huh? Relax, take a deep breath, I'm not going to bite you." He laughed and Kira was hoping to all Gods, Goddesses and Spirits that it wasn't at her. "I'd probably break my teeth trying."

 _You heard him, just calm down. You can't get fired, your mum is your boss._ "Sorry, I'm… just a little nervous. This is kind of my first job and I haven't had a change of scenery for a while." She stopped herself here, before she started rambling too much.

"Okay, now I'm curious. We're hunting a rogue Spectre and Shepard hired a newbie? I don't buy it. What's your story, kid?" Joker raised an eyebrow at her.

Kira was stunned for a second. She hadn't considered what she would do if her mother wouldn't introduce her as her daughter. Should she just tell the truth? She doubted she'd be taken seriously if she was just 'the Commander's daughter'.

She and her mum were similar to each other but not identical. She could probably get away with lying. But did she want to? Lies like this, about your whole back story, they had a tendency to get out. Quickly.

She made her decision, not daring to look up at her mother at that moment. She needed to do this one on her own.

"Didn't the red hair clue you in?" She took a breath to steady herself, plus it added a little dramatic flair. Kira might be shy with strangers, but she still likes a bit of drama in her speech. "I'm the Commander's daughter. Made getting onto the crew that much easier. Sorry I didn't just come out and say that…" She trailed off, knowing she was starting to get ahead of herself. _The ship has sailed. No backing out now._

"Hey, it's okay, you don't seem like the type who'd be showing off with the nepotism" He winked at her. _That's good, right? He doesn't think I'm here just because Commander Shepard is my mum._ "I don't think anyone here is going to judge you, Kira. Especially not if you are even half as much of a badass in combat as your mother is."

"Pff… please, I'm better than she is." Kira laughed along with Joker. She was already starting to like him. Then again, he seemed hard not to like.

"Are you two done mocking your CO?" Jane interjected after a good half a minute of laughter. "Joker, get us going to the coordinates I sent you. Therum should be the best place in the Artemis Tau cluster to find this 'doctor T'Soni'."

"Aye, aye, ma'am" Joker responded with a salute and turned towards his console.

The two Shepards started walking toward the CIC. "Good start." Jane turned her attention to Kira. "Joker is a good guy, even if he has no idea what the hell protocol is."

"Is this the part where you tell me that was the nicest member of the crew and it's all going to go downhill from here?" The younger Shepard asked, fearing a positive answer coming from her mother.

"Joker is the easiest to get along with, if you like a lot of sarcasm and I know you do. But the rest are just as kind and welcoming, I assure you. Well, except…" she trailed off as they came into the CIC.

"Except WHAT?" Kira new this wasn't going anywhere good.


	4. Chapter 4 – Nobody likes going to the do

The two women came to a stop by the CIC's right work stations. A middle-aged man turned around to greet them. "Commander." He saluted. _Official. Definitely more formal then the pilot._ "I assume this is the new crew member you told me about?"

Jane nodded her head lightly. "Yes. This is Kira Shepard. She will be joining the shore party." Kira's mother was acting more stiffly than usual, which Kira interpreted as sign to also put on the professional mask. "Kira, this is Navigator Pressly."

"Nice to meet you, sir-" Kira didn't get far in her greeting before the man interrupted her.

"Spare me the false courtesies." He focused on Jane. "Nepotism, Commander, really? I thought you better than that. First the aliens and now your own child? Any other regs you are planning on bending or breaking?" Pressly sounded absolutely outraged. It got Kira worried. _Will all the Alliance members react to me like that? Maybe this wasn't such a good idea._

"Let me stop you right there, Pressly." There was fire in her mother's eyes. Kira hasn't seen that before. "You are well aware this is now a Spectre vessel, not just the Alliance's. Their regs are out, I decide what's allowed. I'm keeping most of the standard rules as a favor to the human crew, since they are in a majority, but I will not have my decisions questioned, especially not in that tone. Is that understood, Navigator?"

"Yes, ma'am." Pressly said, albeit reluctantly.

"Great. Back to your work, then." The older Shepard bit back any other unnecessary comments she could direct toward the Alliance soldier.

Jane led her daughter towards a curved staircase leading down to the mess hall. They both stayed quiet for a few moments. Kira was the one to break the silence. "He was… nice." She said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Pressly is a by-the-book kind of guy." Jane rolled her eyes "That doesn't match my style of command, but he's a good navigator and the crew likes him, so I keep him around." The N7 shrugged. "You can't always work with people you like."

"Yeah." Kira nodded thoughtfully. "Was that the 'except' you were talking about?"

"Got you worried, huh? Yes, that was it. The rest of the crew is just sunshine and rainbows." The older Shepard chuckled. They stepped into the mess hall, and headed along the right side to a door. "While we're here, let's get you checked out it the medbay."

"Ugh… great." Kira groaned. Nobody liked visiting doctors, even less if you had some medical condition that was… out of the ordinary, to say the least.

"I know, kiddo. C'mon, doctor Chakwas is one of the nicest people I know. You want me to tell her, or will you?" Jane asked, her hand stopping over the door button.

 _Always thinking about protecting me. Thanks mum. Still, this is my secret to tell._

Kira sighed. "I will. Mum, is it going to be a problem?" The teen was worried. Doctors might be under obligation not to tell anyone about medical stuff, but on a ship this small…

Her mother put a calming hand on Kira's shoulder. "It'll be fine. Relax." She smiled warmly toward her daughter. "Remember, I'm the CO here, nobody will cause you any problems."

"Yeah, then I can be the crybaby, who hides behind mommy's skirt as soon as someone is mean to her." Kira rolled her eyes. She was aware that she was being a classic teenager, but she couldn't help it.

"Pfff... you wouldn't caught me dead in a skirt." Jane tried to defuse the situation.

"You'd probably look good in one." Kira sighed heavily. "Let's just get it over with."

They stepped into the well-lit medbay. An older, grey-haired woman was studying a datapad. Kira assumed this was the 'doctor Chakwas' her mother spoke about. Hearing them approach, the doctor raised her head.

"Commander, I see you have returned from the Citadel. And it looks like you have recruited a new crew member?" Chakwas nodded towards Kira. "She's here for a check-up, I presume?"

"Yes, doctor, this is Kira Shepard." The older woman raised her brow, but she remained silent. Kira was starting to like her. _It might be just that she's nicer than the last crew member I met. Not a huge achievement, honestly._ Jane continued."I'll leave the two of you and go get myself out of this armor. Kira," Jane turned to her daughter "come find me in the mess after you're done here." With that, the N7 left the medbay.

"So umm… hi?" Kira turned toward the doctor, whose attention was fully on her now. _Turn off the awkwardness, this is not the first time you're talking to a doctor. Not even the thousandth._ "Well, I guess by the name you have already realized that I'm the Commander's daughter."

"Yes, of course." Chakwas nodded. "The galaxy is a big place, but that much of a coincidence doesn't happen often."

"Funnily enough that's not the biggest surprise that I should probably tell you. With you being the doctor on this ship. That heals people. If they get injured." She was just stalling now. "Okay. So, there is this thing, not really funny at all, that doctors and scientists have been trying to figure of about me for quite a while and…" Kira sighed. This was annoying.

She hasn't really told anyone that wasn't her doctor or teacher, so this time it shouldn't feel any different. And it wasn't. She was always struggling to get this out of her system.

"You don't have to tell me if whatever it is doesn't pose a threat to you or anyone else on this ship." Even if her words were strictly professional and clinical, the doctor's lips formed a warm smile. It was enough to calm Kira down. She took a deep breath.

"No, it isn't a danger to anyone. But it is important. See… mum didn't have me with another human." Another breath. "My other parent was an asari."

Kira looked the doctor dead in the eye. _Three, two, one…_

"How is that… possible?" _Right on point!_ The doctor's forehead frowned, she was deep in thought. "You look human, there is no question that physically you ARE human. But this shouldn't be possible."

"Yeah, I know." Kira sighed "Listen doc, this is something both doctors and scientists have been trying to figure out since my mum got pregnant but they haven't been able to. You're welcome run any tests you want, even though I doubt you'll find anything that isn't in my file already." Kira tried not to sound too rude, knowing it was hard to believe that she was indeed half asari.

"Alright." The doctor said slowly, like she didn't 100% believe her. _I don't blame her. Nobody does before they stick a few needles into me._ "There are a few diagnostic tests I need to run anyway, for every member of the crew, so come on and sit on one of these beds" Chakwas was very calm about all this, which Kira liked.

Too many doctors have presumed that she wants them to find out what was the cause of her weirdness. Truth be told, she didn't really care. She was more interested in how her body worked and reacted to all the different and confusing things happening to it.

"I need to check your biotic amp, run a few blood tests, check your eyes and ears and do an ECG." The doctor started listing, but Kira was still hung up on the first item on the list.

"Um, doc, I don't have an amp. Never had. My biotics are both strong and stable without it, so there was no need to put one in me." Kira explained. All humans needed a biotic amp to have control over their biotic powers, but she wasn't human, not really, and asari had no need for the amps. "Medically, that's my biggest difference from, you know, just humans. At least that's what the doctors managed to find." She rolled her eyes.

"Hmm… interesting. Do you mind if I do a few tests on that? They are not the standard pre-duty procedure, but-" Kira didn't let the doctor finish.

"Yeah, sure go ahead. Really, the more tests and whatevers you do, the bigger the chance of me finding out something new about myself, so knock yourself out." Kira waved in her own general direction. "Just try to keep the needles to a minimum, ok?"

"What is it with soldiers and their fear of needles?" Chakwas sighed deeply, but gave Kira a smile. She swiped her datapad a few times, no doubt making notes on how weird Kira was.

The testing took about an hour. The Normandy's doctor was very professional, but not rough or too clinical. Kira decided she likes Chakwas. For a doctor, she wasn't terrible, and she seemed to have a motherly aura around her. _Or I have mommy issues, wouldn't be surprised if that was the case._

After they were done with all the analyses, Kira jumped off the medical bed-table- _thingy_ and waved the doctor goodbye. Chakwas was buried deep in data, so she only waved back.

The young Shepard couldn't be happier to step out of the ship's medbay.

* * *

Kira found her mother seated at the table in the middle of the mess. The Spectre was sipping a cup of coffee, a drink her daughter despised. It wasn't just the taste of the brown liquid, Kira hated even the smell of it.

When she desperately needed it, Kira got her caffeine from sugary energy drinks, but it wasn't a common occurrence. She usually got up to a cup of hot chocolate instead. The taste was worlds better and you didn't have bad breath after it.

The N7 brought her eyes away from the mug towards her daughter. "Did Chakwas give you a hard time? You ware gone a long while." Jane raised her brow in a questioning way.

"Nah, we just talked everything through and she did some tests. You know I'm bad at tech, I'm not even sure what the hell she was doing. But of course she just had to use some damn needles." Kira's face scrounged in part disgust and part relieve. _Finally it's over, at least for now. Why do doctors love their needles sooo much?_

"Yeah, she likes those. Well, since you went through that so bravely, my dear child," Said Jane overdramatically, reminding Kira just how much they were alike. "should we get back to meeting the rest of the crew?" The older Shepard stood up as she asked her rhetoric question.

Kira's only response was a slight nod and she turned to follow her mother to meet another one of her new coworkers.


	5. Chapter 5 - Biotic Talk

The next crew member the two Shepards spoke to was a human biotic named Kaidan.

As Kira approached his work station, trailing behind her mother. The man in front of her was wearing the standard Alliance uniform. He'd blend completely into the rest of the crew, but she noticed the biotic amp at the base of his skull, marking him as a trained biotic. Above the implant, started his short, onyx black hair.

The man turned around as he heard the two-Shepard party come near him, snapping Kira out of looking at the back of his head. _Not creepy at all Kira, not at all._ She almost rolled her eyes at herself.

"Commander, good to see you. This is the girl that was waiting for you at the docs, correct?" Kaidan asked, his eyebrow raised.

"Yes, this is my daughter, Kira. She is joining our ground team. I hope you have no problems with that." Jane introduced her kid to Kaidan, using her voice to make sure he understood that getting into the 'nepotism' discussion was not a good idea.

"No Commander, of course it's not a problem. I trust your judgment." Kaidan turned to Kira. "It's nice to meet you, Kira. My name's Kaidan Alenko, but there's no need for formalities, so just call me Kaidan. I hope you won't have any trouble fitting in with the crew." _Well, he's nice. Maybe a bit too stiff though._

Kira used one of her polite smiles. "It's nice meet you too, Kaidan." She just hoped it didn't sound fake. Alenko didn't seem like a bad person, but Kira couldn't get over how stiffly kind he seemed.

A swooshing sound came to Kira's ears and she turned around to see Chakwas coming out of the medbay and coming towards the three of them. _Did she find something weird in the tests? Crap, crap, crap…_

"Alenko, Commander, Kira." The doctor nodded to each soldier in a greeting. "Commander, would you mind coming with me for a few minutes. I need to talk to you."

 _That sounded ominous. Probably it's about me. Not surprising, considering I shouldn't even exist._ Kira's mind reeled with the possibilities of what Chakwas wanted from her mother.

"Sure, doctor, I'll be right there." Jane said and turned back to her daughter and Kaidan. "The two of you can get to know each other while I'm listening to Chakwas' lecture. I'll make sure to come back as quickly as I can." The N7 winked and started moving towards the medical bay.

"So what's your specialty?" Kira whipped her head back to Kaidan, raising her brow questioningly.

"What?" she asked, not understanding Alenko's question.

"I- I just meant… What kind of a fighter are you? Biotics, tech, a bit of both?" The Allince soldier stumbled through his words, blushing a bit in the dim light of the mess.

 _Did I just make it awkward? Crap, Kira, you're doing just great at making friends today. Salvage this, just stay on topic of fighting, that's what you're good at. Not small talk, definitely not small talk._ She took a deep breath.

"Ugh, right, fighting. Not tech, I'm real bad at that. I rely on my biotics most of the time, adding some shotgun to the face approach when needed." This she could do. Talking about fighting wasn't as good as fighting, but it was still better than awkwardly standing around. "How about you? I noticed you're a biotic as well." Kira asked, as she pointed to the back of her own neck. Her hair covered the fact that she didn't actually have an amp.

"Oh, you've noticed." Kaidan visibly piped up at her comment. _Noted: when in doubt, talk about biotics with him._ "Yes, I'm an L2. You're probably too young to know anybody with it, you should have an L3 implanted, right?"

Kira didn't even get a chance to nod, much less answer before Kaidan continued on his tangent.

"Anyway, after BAaT, going into military was pretty much the standard, expected route. It doesn't hurt to get paid for all the headaches of being a biotic." Alenko took a much needed pause, which gave Kira on opening to get a sentence in.

"Oh, I read about the Biotic Acclimation and Temperance training, it was a program conducted at Jump Zero in the sixties, right? I recall it shut down in '69, didn't it?" The younger Shepard decided it was best to omit the whole 'no I don't have an L3 implant in my skull, sorry to disappoint'.

"Yes, it shut down. How do you know so much about it?" Kaidan seemed impressed. _Definitely talk about biotics with him._

"Just extranet research I did when I found out I could throw a water bottle across the room without touching it. Thought it was a good idea to figure out what the training procedure was for the stuff." Kira shrugged as she casually lied.

She had known she was a biotic pretty much her entire life. Apparently, when she was two years old, she got angry at a toy soldier and broke him in half just by staring at him. She was raised as a biotic, and only during the long nights at the CIA did she decide to do some research about other human biotics.

Before that, her mum took care of her training. And in the CIA, Nyxini started talking about how the school's biotic courses mirrored those of the asari. So Kira got curious and spent a couple of nights on her omni-tool, checking out the history of human biotics. _Terrifying, would be the best way to describe it._

"Ah, of course, now we have way better programs for biotic kids. But back then, we were one of the first to even have biotic potential. Jump Zero was a sterile research facility and we were cut off from the world, to prevent leaks." Kaidan continued his story.

 _Seems we have one thing in common, we talk about school way too much. But I left school about 8 hours ago, he left it 10 years earlier._

"When I grew up with the Commander on Alliance ships, I didn't always have a steady connection either. At least you had other people your age there, I'm sure you had ways to occupy time." She didn't try to make the statement sound even vaguely flirty, but unfortunately, it did. At least to her ears. Maybe it was just her. _Please let it just be me. He is not hard on the eyes at all, but he's old, AND MY COWORKOER._

Kaidan blushed a little "I'm not the sort who does that kind of thing." _So he did catch it. Damn it. Great way of making things awkward from the get go._ "There was a girl I spent a lot of time with, but we kept our clothes on. Rahna. She was from Turkey. She was smart and charming as hell. Beautiful, but not stuck up about it. Like you Kira, I guess. Ekem…"

 _WHAT?_ Alenko blushed deeper and Kira's own skin was close in color to her hair. _Crap, crap, crap! What do I say to that? Fuck! Maybe I could throw myself out of the airlock? It would still be more pleasant than whatever THIS conversation is._

Kira was freaking out. It wasn't the first compliment she heard, but the previous ones were either from her friends or her teachers. _Well, except that one time. Stop, you're not even on the Citadel anymore._

"Ummm… Thanks, Kaidan. I- I… ugh… I appreciate you saying that." _That was… almost coherent. And even nice. And kind. And totally didn't show what a fucking mess I am right now._

The two of them stayed in awkward silence for a minute after that. Both of them didn't know what to say and how to push the conversation forward.

 _Great first impression. This is the first member of the shore party and I already fucked it up. This day should end right now. But no, I still have more people to meet. Never thought I'd want to go back to the CIA this soon after leaving._

Thankfully, the Commander saved both of her socially awkward crew members by stepping out of the medbay and coming over to them. "The two of you have a nice talk?" She asked, seeming oblivious to the absolute awkwardness in the air. Kira knew better. She knew her mother was trying to get her out of the sticky situation.

The younger Shepard collected herself and answered. "Yes. We talked about how different biotic training is now, compared to Alenko's time." _Smooth, Kira. Why can't you do that when your mother is not around?_ "It was nice talking to you, Kaidan." She nodded her head towards him. The lieutenant managed to stop blushing by then and nodded back. "Mum, should we get back to meeting the rest of the crew?"

"Yes, of course. See you later Alenko." The N7 dismissed her crewmember with a nod. "Let's go, the rest of the crew should be in the hold and the engine room."

The two Shepards moved into the elevator going down. Kira was still in the process of calming down, but her blush was gone and she felt at least presentable.

"What did he say?" Jane asked, in a very motherly tone.

"I guess he just wanted to give me a compliment. But I took it… not so well, and managed to make the whole thing… quite terrible, honestly." Kira buried her head in the palms of her hands.

"Relax, kiddo. First flirting is always awkward as hell. You'll get used to it. At least he looked even more bothered by it then you did." Jane chuckled.

"Mum… How old even is he? 30?!" Kira needed this conversation to stop, right now. _Gods, can this lift go any slower?_

"He's 32" Jane corrected, matter-of-factly.

"You're not helping, mum… he's just two years younger than you, how can you be okay with this?!" _Whatever this is._ Even Kira didn't know why she was bothered by that conversation. _It's not like I would ever want anything to happen with Kaidan. Just… no._

"Kid, I know it isn't going anywhere. And some harmless flirting and compliments don't hurt." The Spectre explained. "Unless you want me to go full mama-bear on Alenko?" She asked, tone serious.

"No, no, don't do that. Definitely no. I'll… manage."

With that, the elevator finally stopped and its doors opened. Kira had just a few seconds to get ready to meet even more people. _Hopefully this will go better._


	6. Chapter6-Getting on with krogans is easy

After the two Shepards stepped out of the elevator, Kira's eyes had a hard time getting used to the dim light of the cargo bay. As her vision cleared, she saw a big tank, an M35 Mako model.

From under the tank there were turian legs sticking out and Kira was already happy to meet this person. She always had an easier time getting to know aliens then humans, so this might not end in a total catastrophe, unlike her meeting with Kaidan.

For now though, Jane led her daughter to their left, towards an old, scarred krogan warrior. Kira's senses went on alert, a natural reaction around unknown krogan. With Berbok, she knew what to expect, she knew how he managed his standard krogan anger and other stuff like that.

As similar as most krogans were, they still had individual reactions to every situation. Most other races viewed them only as aggressive brutes. While Kira couldn't disagree with the fact that they liked fighting, she knew krogan had a good reason for their aggression and that not all of them dealed with **everything** using their fists and shotguns.

All in all, she liked krogan. She just had to get to know them a bit to feel more at ease with them.

A deep, krogan voice took Kira out of her head and into the present. "Shepard." This seemed to be the krogan's greeting. _Short and concise, I can work with that._ "Since when do humans keep their offspring on their warships?"

 _That was quick. But makes sense, with their goddamn smell._ Jane cut in before Kira could answer for her. "Since 2 hours ago. Problems, Wrex?" The N7 wasn't a fan of the krogan. He was clever, yes, but he had a problem with following her authority and she wouldn't have that on her ship.

"It depends, can she handle herself in fight? Or is she as squishy as she looks, hiding behind you?" There was a distinct growl in his voice. _A challenge. Alright big guy, can't wait to see the look on your face when I show off._

"Wrex, Kira is perf-" Jane stared to explain, but the young redhead wasn't going to let her mommy defend her. She cut in mid sentence, stepping in front of her older version.

"I just know how to follow introduction protocol. Since it seems you don't care about it, I think I have an idea how to make sure you understand what kind of a fighter I am." Kira stepped close to the krogan warrior, her eyes hard, staring into his.

 _'_ _Don't show weakness.'_ Kira repeated Berbok's words in her head. _'If you show that you're a weakling, our people will never treat you seriously.'_ She knew she needed to stand tall and show off her strength.

"Really?" Wrex said slowly, his face still showing nothing, but his eyes flickered with interest. He crossed his arms and leaned back a little bit. "And how are you going to do that?"

 _'_ _Just stand your ground and you'll be fine. Don't cover behind tech like a salarian. Don't try to talk anyone to death like an asari.'_ She remembered how Berbok introduced her to his friends. She sparred with the strongest of them. She didn't win, of course, but she lasted long enough for them to respect her afterwards.

 _Here it comes._ While Wrex was talking, Kira created a biotic barrier around her face, making sure she wouldn't split her skull open. _'A quick show of strength.'_

She prepared herself mentally, did a quick prayer to all that anyone could think of as holy and then Kira made a small step forward and head butted the old krogan warrior square in the face. It hurt, but thanks to the barrier protecting her forehead she stayed conscious and not bleeding all over the cargobay floor.

Jane gasped, not expecting **that** from her daughter. She was aware Kira was strong and brave, but head butting a krogan battlemaster? Definitely something to talk about in private.

Wrex stared at the small human for a couple of seconds. Kira's heart skipped a beat. _Please, let me have judged the situation well. Please, don't go into a murderous rampage._ This was a long 10 seconds.

Finally, the krogan reacted, not in a way either Shepard expected. He started laughing. A full on, hearty laugh. "Damn , kid. You pack some punch. Didn't think you humans were even capable of that." Wrex managed to get his laughter under control "Can wait to see how you use that on the battlefield." He got serious for a second. "But don't ever do that again, got it, kid?"

"Yeah, got it." Kira chuckled. She knew Wrex for less than 3 minutes, but she already liked him. A lot. _Definitely a better start then with Kaidan or with Pressly._ "Damn, you're thick-skulled." She said rubbing her head, even with the barrier she managed to hurt herself a little.

"He-he, thanks for the complement, kid." _I guess 'kid' is my new nickname. Great. Although… could be worse. Could be better though._ "Now can the two of you leave me be?"

"Sure, Wrex." The Commander finally managed to get herself out of shock at her daughter's behavior. "Come on, Kira, let's go. You still have 3 people to meet. Don't hit the rest of them, alright?"

"Okay mum. Bye, Wrex." She winked toward the krogan. _Yup. He's cool. I'll have to drill him for war stories later._

The two Shepards went a short distance to talk to the woman Kira saw behind her mother back on the Citadel's docks, along with Alenko. She turned around when they got close and saluted.

"At ease, Williams." Jane waved off the attempt at formality. "Ashley, this is Kira, our new ground team member and my daughter. Kira, this is Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams."

"Nice to meet you, Kira." The dark haired soldier extended a hand for Kira to shake.

The younger woman retuned the gesture, grasping the other hand firmly. "Likewise, Chief." She tried the formal route. _After the salute, this seems like my best bet._

"You can just call me Ashley, no problem." The soldier responded, shrugging. " By the way, I know how it is to have a family name looming over you. You can be certain that I'll give you no grief over that. As long as you know what you're doing on the ground, of course."

 _Ah, so she is that Williams, I was wondering. But she seems nice._ "I'm happy to hear that. And yes, I can manage in a fight, no need to worry here." Kira said confidently.

"I saw what you did with Wrex. How didn't you crack your skull?" Ashley asked incredulously.

"A biotic barrier over my head." Kira smiled at the older woman. "I'm not **that** crazy to head butt a krogan without making sure I don't die." She chuckled.

"Well, that was certainly impressive." William seemed more shocked then impressed, but of course Kira didn't comment on that.

Jane saw that the conversation wasn't going anywhere else with these two, so she excused herself and Kira. Once out of earshot she told her daughter "Bad news is, still two more people to meet."

"And the good news?" Kira asked.

"The remaining two are also aliens. I know you get on better with them. But anyway, I think you'll like them."

The two of them started walking to the Mako, which still had a pair of turian legs sticking out from underneath.


	7. Chapter 7 – The (not so) first meeting

Jane Shepard hit the tank with the palm of her hand, making the turian underneath jump a little. "Garrus, you've got a minute?" She asked, chuckling.

"Sure, just give me a moment." The turian, _Garrus I guess_ , answered. Kira couldn't help but think his voice was kind of… familiar. She shook off the feeling for now. _Some humans have similar voices, turians can't be that different in this aspect._

Garrus slid out from underneath the Mako, wearing a protective helmet. _So he is probably in charge of repairing the tank. What the hell did mum drive it into this time? Someone else should drive instead of her, really._ The turian had his back to the two Shepard, as he set down his equipment and took off his helmet. Then, he turned around.

Kira's eyes locked with the turian's. In that second, her heart stopped. _Oh FUCK!_

* * *

 _1 year ago_

Kira was sitting on the rooftop of one of Presidium's buildings. Dozens of meters below her, the people, human, asari, turian and salarian mostly, were going along with their day. They seemed so small from up here. She wasn't one of them, she was above it all.

The red-haired teen knew this was just a fleeting feeling, but she cherished it nonetheless. Especially on days like this, she needed to be far away from everybody.

She needed the quiet. Up here, the only sound she could hear was created by the cars swooshing overhead. From here, they weren't even that high up. Just a few meters above her.

Today wasn't the worst day of her life, by far. But, it was a collection of small, crappy moments that led her to her favorite spot on the Citadel. A spot she shouldn't be in, because of a few hundred regulation, but she didn't care. She needed to think and the CIA was the absolute worst place for her to do so. She really had to get out of there.

First, she had a fight with Nyx. The asari didn't get Kira's joke and things spiraled out of control from there. The two girls had a screaming match that almost ended in biotically throwing half the room's contents at each other.

Because of the fight, Kira forgot that she was supposed to meet Jesant for studying. The salarian was supposed to help her with a project for a technical class. He was making her a favor and she forgot about him, she felt like shit about it.

To make matters go from bad to worse, at lunch she had to mediate a fight between Berbok and Flavus. They just had to jump at each other's throat at the smallest provocation.

So, when people sucked or she sucked at communicating with them, she came here, to the top of one of the Presidium's admittedly lower buildings. This was her place to think about it all, and not to think about anything at the same time.

 _Why can't people just get along? Myself included. Why do we have to fight, because of slight differences? Damn it, I just want to pass a single week without being part of some drama, or having to help others through one._

 _I guess not having friends would be one solution to that problem. But is it something I really want?_

She sat there alone with her thoughts for about twenty minutes, when her attention was caught by a car turning from its lane and making its way toward her. She focused her eyes and saw what kind of car it was. _Oh, crap. C-Sec! How the hell did they notice me up here?_

The patrol car was approaching quickly and she had a decision to make. Walking on rooftops wasn't allowed, except for designated places, like rooftop bars. Not to mention she was technically trespassing. She looked down to see what building she was on. Sirta Foundation.

 _Nope, I don't have the kind of money to pay off the fine for being here. Who am I kidding, I barely have_ _ **any**_ _money. Time to run._

As the C-Sec car touched down on the roof, Kira started running in the opposite direction. She wasn't the fastest runner in the Galaxy, but she had a good stamina and a few biotic tricks to help her. She hoped she could tire out whoever was going to be chasing her, or at least make them believe she was more trouble than she was worth.

As the redhead approached the end of the Foundation's rooftop, she saw the next surface was attached to it, but a good ten meters lower. Instinctively, her body began glowing a deep blue color. As she leapt from the high ledge, she lowered her own mass, causing herself to fall down slower.

She hit the ground without any real strain to her legs and started running again. Kira risked a look over her shoulder. A salarian and a turian officers were slowly making their way down a ladder, leading from rooftop to rooftop.

 _Good, no asari._ She knew generating mass effect fields this strong on yourself was something only an asari would be capable of. At least she never saw another race doing it. _Let's put some distance between me and them._

She continued moving from roof to roof, making sure to get out of the line of sight of the two officers. After 15 minutes of not seeing them anywhere behind her, she allowed herself to slow down, opened her GPS and headed back to the CIA's dormitory. She had enough adventure for the day.

* * *

The next few times she went back onto the roof she was more alert to her surroundings, making sure no C-Sec car or camera could get a glance at her.

But, after about two months she got careless again. She started exploring some new roofs, trying to find an even better thinking spot. Now, she was laying on top of a freakishly beautiful, but very high building, eyes closed. Her exam season has just ended and she needed to relax.

Unfortunately, this was not her lucky day. When she heard the car engine behind her it was already too late. The engine stopped and a car door opened.

She got up quickly, only to see a lone turian C-Sec officer a couple of meters from her. She beelined to the edge of the rooftop, but quickly realized that the next ledge was way too far away to safely jump from here, not without a run-up. _Crap, crap, crap!_

She turned around to see the turian walking slowly toward her. _He knows you have nowhere to run you idiot._ The officer actually had a smug expression painted across his face. That was the moment it clicked for Kira.

 _It's the same turian that chased me two months ago. How? This station is huge!_ After a second, she realized that she was only a couple blocks from that Sirta building, which meant this was probably his patrolling district.

"Nowhere to run off to this time, huh?" The turian bastard was just radiating in smugness. "So tell me, do you break the law just because you like the view, or is there some more interesting motivation to it?"

Kira stayed silent. _Why is he talking to me? Just arrest me and be done with it!_

"You do know that the punishment for crimes on the Citadel is determined by intention, as well as the deed? Of course your repeating of the offence will also have influence on that." The turian continued. Weirdly, his voice didn't sound threatening, even if his words were. He was… teasing? Trying to rile her up, perhaps?

Kira decided talking might be more beneficial after all, so she sighed deeply and started her defense. "No, I'm not planning a heist, or whatever you're thinking." She rolled her eyes.

"So you **can** speak. Go on, why are you here, then?" The smug smile was still painted on his turian face, but his eyes seemed interested. At least the one she could see clearly, the other was covered by a blue tactical visor.

"It will probably sound crazy but… you're right, I do like the view." He made an expression that in human terms would be raising an eyebrow. "Can you really blame me? Look at this!" Kira twirled her hands around her. "This is beautiful, peaceful even. No politicking or crime. Nobody to argue with, or to scold you."

 _He probably thinks I'm a basket case. And I should agree with that. I'm breaking the law for a view. Yep, definitely crazy._

The turian seemed to take in what she said. After he thought it through, he spoke again. "This isn't your second time up here, is it?"

"You seriously think I'll answer that?" The red-haired human shot back at him this time in the turian language. She thought it might make him more sympathetic to her if she spoke his language. She knew she wasn't great at pronunciation, but she did as well as she could without double vocal cords.

He hesitated, her language change must've taken him by surprise. Then, he said something that Kira was definitely not expecting. "Look, I don't want to have to arrest you, really. You seem like a generally good kid" She couldn't help rolling her eyes at the 'kid' part. _He can't be more than a few years older than me._ "and the database says you're in the Interspecies Academy, so you must be smarter than this." He gestured to the general rooftop area.

"That visor of yours gave you all that info?" She asked, still using turian. Yes, she was using her skills to get out of the situation, _but who wouldn't in my place. And he seems okay with that, unless he's stupid, but he doesn't look stupid._

"Some, sure. The rest? I believe you humans call it 'intuition', right?"

"I guess. So back to the topic at hand, are you going to arrest me?" Kira liked talking with him well enough, but she needed to know where she stood.

"You're not going to stop coming here even if I do, are you?" The turian seemed exasperated with her. _I just can't help being annoying to people, can I?_

"No, unless I'll have to leave the Citadel. And that would suck." She murmured the last sentence in human, hoping his translator wouldn't pick it up.

"Alright, I'll let you be. Just be careful, other officers won't look at this case so nicely." The turian turned around and started walking to his car. Kira followed, shocked at how easily she managed to get off the hook.

 _What are you doing, Kira? Just leave! He let you off the hook, don't follow him. He still might change his mind._ But her feet carried her involuntarily toward the turian. When she gained enough distance, she said: "Hey, I just wanted to… um… say thank you, Officer…"

"Vakarian." He answered her unasked question. "And you're welcome." With that he climbed into the driver's seat of his car and lifted off. She had a feeling she would be seeing this 'Officer Vakarian' again.

* * *

Back in the present, Kira was still trying not to show that she was freaking out. _Please don't say anything._ She silently begged the turian in front of her with her eyes. _Do turians know what puppy dog eyes mean? 'Cause I'm sure I'm using them right now._

Her mother started the introduction. "Garrus, this is our new crew member, Kira Shepard. Kiddo, this is Garrus Vakarian, a former C-Sec officer." Jane recited.

Kira swallowed deeply and decided to make a move before this got out of hand. "Nice to meet you, Garrus. For the first time. Ever." Yeah, she was sure her mother would comment on whatever this was later.

"Nice to meet you too, Kira." The turian said, not missing a beat. "I'm sure working together will be interesting, are you a biotic, like the Commander?" _As if he doesn't know. That smug bastard! Is he mocking? Can turians even mock? He has to be doing this on purpose. At least he's going along with this._

Kira wasn't really angry, mostly just jealous that he was dealing way better than she was. "Yes." She said a bit too strongly. If somebody didn't know her, maybe they wouldn't pick up on that. Sadly, her mother did know her all too well. "I'm actually even better than her." She tried to play it off with her usual coyness about her skills.

Jane decided to stop Kira in her tracks. "Okay, kiddo. Rule nr. 1, you're never better than your CO, at least you don't say it to their face. Come on, we should be close to Therum by now, which is where our next mission will be and you still need to meet Tali." The older Shepard steered her daughter away from the smiling turian. "See you later Garrus"

Vakarian nodded back to his Commander as she turned around.

As the Shepards were walking toward the engineering, Kira hazarded a look behind her. Garrus had the audacity to wink at her. _We definitely need to talk about all this._ Her mind was running a mile a minute, as they stepped into the room with a huge drive core making a swooshing sound.


	8. Chapter 8 - Engines and lockers

**A/N: Sorry I haven't noticed the problem earlier, the chapter should now be readable.**

The giant blue ball of element zero was pulsing in a steady rhythm. Kira took in her surroundings. There were half a dozen Alliance engineers working in the room, all deep in their work.

On the far left side of the work bench stood a single quarian woman, in a beautiful purple exosuit. At first glance, one could mistaken her as just another human, but a closer look at her legs showed otherwise.

She was tapping something into her omni-tool, as the two Shepards approached her. Jane cleared her throat in an attempt at getting the quarian's attention. "Tali, you've got a moment?"

The alien jumped a little. She turned immediately, revealing an opaque helmet hiding her face away from everybody's eyes. "Commander," the quarian sounded surprised "of course I have time. What do you need?"

"This" Jane gestured toward her daughter "is Kira, our new shore party member. Also, my daughter." She then turned to look at the younger Shepard. "Kira, this is Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, she's a damn good engineer. You two should chat. I need to go make sure Joker flies us where we need to be." With that the Commander turned around left toward the upper decks.

Kira decided to take on starting the conversation, as the quarian looked even more shy and nervous than she did. "Hi. Nice to meet you Tali. I have to say, your exosuit is really beautiful, I love the swirls." Kira smiled broadly, extending her hand in a greeting.

The quarian gripped Kira's hand with her own, 3 fingered one. "Nice to meet you too, Kira. I wanted to say, I know how it is to have a high-ranking parent and serving on a ship under them." That managed to surprise Kira.

"Really?" Kira questioned. "Who are your parents? If you don't mind me asking, of course." She gave the other girl a way to back out, just in case this was a sore subject.

"My dad, he's on the Admiralty Board, one of the 5 most important people in the entire Fleet." Tali explained. She wasn't bragging and Kira could hear some regret in the quarians voice, but she didn't seem opposed to talking more about the matter.

"That's tough. Is your dad's position hereditary?" Now Kira was curious. She loved learning about alien cultures and she hadn't had much chance to interact with quarians while she was on the Citadel. They were quite a rare sight there. _If she's up to it, this could be a great opportunity to learn so much about their people._

"No, it isn't. I'll probably never serve on the Admiralty Board. Not sure I'd even want to. I can't imagine having to decide over the fate of 17 million people." Even without seeing Tali's face, Kira knew that the quarian was terrified at the idea, she heard it in her voice. The human girl decided to change the subject slightly, not wanting to overstep any personal boundaries.

"Is that why you left the Fleet? To make a name for yourself, out of your dad's shadow?" _The opposite of what I'm doing, currently. Seems more like regression than progress for me._

"No. I left for my Pilgrimage. All quarians do. We set out into the unknown, only to return when we find something of value. We gift this thing to the captain of our new ship, as a thanks for taking us in." The quarian's voice became more happy, taking on a more dreamy cadence.

 _She really likes talking about her people. That's great, I'll get a lot of stories out of her. Maybe we'll even become friends._

The two girls talked about their respective childhoods for a good half an hour, before the Commander's voice came in through the intercom.

"Vakarian, Wrex, Kira, suit up. ETA for Therum 40 minutes. Be ready in the cargo hold, by the Mako. Shepard out."

 _Oh my God. First mission already?! I barely had time to meet everyone. Wow._

"Good luck." Said Tali. "I'd recommend to put your seatbelt on in the Mako. Your mother doesn't really drive that smoothly" She added jokingly.

"Right, she never did." Kira said goodbye to Tali and she headed to the locker that already had her name on it. She grabbed her undersuit and headed to the woman's bathroom.

After she changed out of her civvies and into the tight, black suit she returned to the locker and started putting on her light armor.

She was just finishing up with her gloves when she heard someone approaching. She turned to see Garrus heading for his own locker. He was already wearing his own armor when they met before, so she assumed he was just getting his weapons.

"Hey." Kira said, trying to stay calm. Ashley was still over at the gun station and Kira didn't want the soldier to hear what she needed to say to the turian, so she kept her voice low and switched to turian, hoping that William's translator wouldn't pick it up. "Thanks for, um… sticking with my story." Kira said awkwardly, hoping the ex-C-Sec officer actually did remember her from all those months ago and she wasn't making a total fool of herself.

"No problem." Kira breathed a sigh of relief. "Did you come here because you got tired of breaking the law on the Citadel?" His voice wasn't accusatory, his subvocals told Kira that he was indeed making a joke. _Well, at least he does remember me and doesn't seem angry or anything._

"Yes, of course." She started with a broad smile on her face. "You know, with my mum being a Spectre I can climb all the roofs in the Galaxy, no matter how many regs are against it." She chuckled. "No, but seriously, thanks. I really didn't want to explain to my mother how I know a C-Sec officer." Kira cringed a little. _Me and my mother might be close, but explaining getting almost arrested is not the best mother-daughter relationship building exercise._

"An **ex** -C-Sec officer." Garrus stressed. "Joining up with your mother was pretty synonymous with handing in my resignation." He chuckled dryly.

"Do you regret it? Leaving the Citadel, I mean." The young Shepard asked.

"No. No, I don't. Maybe I will after this is over and we're either victorious or accused of treason, but right now… we're doing something that matters." Kira wasn't sure if he was trying to convince her, or himself. "How about you, any regrets?"

"I'll tell you after this mission. For now, me being on the Normandy was pretty much just talking to people." Kira couldn't hold her eye roll. She was already tired from all the talking, even if physically she wouldn't need sleep for at least 5 more hours.

"I never understood how human eyes can do that thing." Garrus muttered, making Kira laugh a little.

"It's easy, we just need to be annoyed enough." She un-helpfully explained. He laughed back at her snarky remark. Talking to the turian was easier than Kira thought it would be.

They both noticed that Wrex, the krogan she met earlier, was making his way over to the lockers. He too was already in full armor.

"Ready for some fun, kid?" The krogan asked as he approached his locker, taking out a shotgun and an assault rifle.

"Yup." Kira answered simply, turning to her own locker. She strapped her pistol onto her left hip. Then she took out her shotgun, and slammed her locker shut. The two aliens turned their eyes to her with apparent surprise. "What?" The girl asked.

"Didn't think you could even lift up a shotgun, kiddo, much less handle the kickback." Wrex said.

 _Oh really?_ "You also didn't think I'd headbutt you, did you?" She knew she needed to stand her ground on situations like this. _It's basically school, just with adults, instead of other kids._ Which didn't make that much of a difference. Both Nyx and Berbok were over half a century older then she was, even if they were considered kids to their races.

Garrus looked at her with a shocked expression."You did what?!"

"What, turian, are you surprised the human kid is tougher then you?" Wrex laughed him off. "You're right Kira, I'll give you a chance in the field before I say you should go back to making barriers and other party tricks."

"Thanks, Wrex." With that, the krogan left them, as he went towards the Mako. Garrus was still looking at Kira incredulously.

"You headbutted… a thousand year old krogan? Just how crazy are you?"

"Hey, I made a small biotic barrier, you know, not to crack my forehead open. Chakwas would probably have a heart attack." Kira chuckled, but Garrus was still looking at her like he wanted to put her in a psychiatric hospital. "Ok, listen. Back in the Academy I had a krogan friend. So sometimes I hung out with the rest of his friends, all krogan. I picked up a few things." She shrugged her shoulders.

"Damn." Garrus seemed amazed by her, _admittedly weird,_ school adventures. He dived into his own locked and took out an assault rifle and a sniper rifle.

As Garrus put his gear on, Kira noticed her mother stepping out of the elevator. Jane was wearing both her N7 armor and Spectre-grade weapons.

 _Can't wait to see how it is to be on an actual mission. With my mother, a krogan warlord and a turian C-Sec officer. Why do I always get into the weirdest situations?_


	9. Chapter 9 - First mission begins

The whole team started getting into the Mako. The Commander was driving, which gave Kira the urge to go at it on foot, but she held her tongue for now. Garrus sat next to the N7, assuming the navigator role. Kira and Wrex sat in the back.

"ETA over the drop zone 3 minutes." Jokers voice sounded in the Mako's intercom. Jane and Garrus did a quick pre-drop checklist and then Kira's mum tuned a little in her seat to speak with her daughter.

"You ready, kiddo?" She asked. _Of course she's worried about me. My first ever mission. I'm terrified and excited and everything in between. But I can't let her see it._

"Yes, Commander." Kira decided that putting on the professional face would be best for this moment, but she also didn't want to overdo it. Her mother new that Kira got overly formal when she was scared and the whole point was to hide it. Thus, her next comment. "Are you sure you should be the one driving this thing? I remember you were barely able to park the skycar on the Citadel." She raised an eyebrow at her mother.

Both Garrus and Wrex started laughing uncontrollably. They were holding onto their sides, trying to hide it and failing spectacularly.

"So, making fun of your CO, Kira? Very professional, kiddo." Her mother sighed. Kira knew her mom wasn't angry, she had a slight smile on her face. "My driving isn't that bad." She murmured. With that she turned around to once again face the steering wheel.

The turian and krogan started to calm down, although their breathing wasn't back to normal yet.

"30 seconds to drop." Joker's voice sounded again.

"Roger that, Joker. Everyone ready?" Jane asked, and the rest of the team nodded. "Therum is basically an oven, with lava rivers running through its surface, so it will be a tight landing."

"Oh, great. So we might drown in lava before I have the opportunity to shoot something with my new shotgun?" Kira asked, pouring a mountain-sized amount of sarcasm into her question.

"We'll burn before drowning, I that helps." Garrus remarked over his shoulder.

"Yeah, not exactly the most consoling statement in the Galaxy, Garrus." Kira rolled her eyes at him.

"Don't worry, kiddo, I'm sure you'll have something to shoot in a bit." Her mother answered, putting the tank in first gear. At the same time the cargobay door opened, revealing a bright red planet.

Jane stepped on the accelerator and the Mako shot out of the Normandy. It's flight was short, but still gave Kira an amazing view. Jane fired the tank's boosters, softening their landing, a few meters above the ground.

They landed in a beautiful, but certainly deadly, lava field. Inside of the tank, Kira couldn't feel the heat, but she wasn't looking forward to stepping outside, even wearing the full suit of armor.

"Everybody in one piece?" The N7 asked her companions. They all murmured their affirmations.

The party started on their way through the field of molten rock. Along their path, there were huge pipes. They probably lead to a refinery of some sort.

"Maybe we should follow the pipes? The doctor might be based in the refinery." Kira proposed.

"Good catch." Her mother's approval was always important to Kira, so she smiled broadly. Only Wrex was able to see it.

After a few minutes, the team noticed a geth ship flying over them.

"This doesn't look suspicious at all." Kira said sarcastically. _Let's be honest, I'm hardly ever_ _ **not**_ _sarcastic. Part of my charm I guess._

"I guess we have our target." Wrex commented, chuckling at Kira's jab.

"They should lead us to wherever dr. T'Soni is." Garrus noted matter-of-factly.

"Let's go then." The Spectre made the tank take a sharp turn, frightening the shit out of her passengers.

"Umm… mum, I'm not a tech specialist, but I don't think Makos are supposed to make movements like that." Kira's head took a second to adjust, her vision blurring and the world seemingly started to go in circles around her.

"As someone who already fixed this pile of metal twice, I can say it definitely isn't." Garrus supported Kira. She chuckled. Her head finally started to realize where right and left were and her stomach got over the dizzy feeling.

"Focus people, we are here to find the doctor, not make fun of my driving!" Jane barked at them.

 _Oh mum, you still can't get over the fact that you're a horrible driver. Huh!_ "Alright, alright. Look," Kira pointed to a giant metal gate. "that seems like a good starting point. Those turrets don't look like any Citadel race made it."

"Correct, they're geth." Kira's mother said approvingly.

Wrex made a half-hearted gesture towards an opening in the rocks. "Let's flank them. Only a fool punches a nathak in the mouth. We should sneak around and pull its tail."

"Agreed. Whatever that nathak thing is." Jane said, as she maneuvered the Mako into the gap. As the geth camp came into view again Kira felt the hum of the tank's gun. She saw Garrus getting the cannon controls ready. "Let's take the big ones out with the canon, then we can get out and clear out the rest on foot." Her mother gave the order.

The huge gun did a quick work of the geth, they melted under its heat, some even exploded. In barely half a minute, most of the geth were done with. Left were only some stragglers and those that hid in the buildings.

"Let's get out there." Jane said unbuckling her seatbelt. "First, we take out the ones outside. Then we clear out the gatehouse where we came from, only then we'll go open the other gate to move forward. I don't want them sneaking behind out back."

"Finally, some action." Wrex grumbled.

All of them got out of their seats and pulled their hhelmets over their heads, sealing them in. The heat outside was deadly even to krogans, so they couldn't take their chances. They checked their comms and luckily the geth weren't jamming them.

The team exited the Mako. Jane and Garrus took out their sniper rifles and took cover behind opposite sides of the tank. Kira and Wrex immediately charged forward, shotguns in their hands, each picking out a different geth to target.

When Kira got close enough to the geth she chose, she used her biotic charge to stun the pile of junk in front of her. After that, two quick shots to its flashlight face made sure it was dead, _or deactivated or… something._

Next, Kira saw a pair of geth running toward her. She did another biotic charge, aiming between the two of them. When she hit them, she knew had a couple of seconds of confusion on the geth's part, so she turned to the left one and shot it with her shotgun. Before she had a chance to take care of the other one, its head exploded, presumably from a sniper shot.

The younger Shepard looked around the base, all the geth were down on the ground.

"Let's get to the first gatehouse." Jane ordered over their comms.

They moved into the steel building, Kira and Wrex in front, with Garrus and Jane covering their backs. Kira noticed they fell into this formation almost seamlessly, it easily matched their fighting styles.

 _I thought mum would be giving more orders, but it looks like as long as shit is going good she leaves us a bit of room to choose our tactics. Risky, but for now it seems to be working._

There was a single geth inside the control room, which she and Wrex took out quickly.

"Come on," The Spectre announced again. "we need to get the other gate open."

"Are they always this easy to kill?" Kira asked jokingly as they walked outside.

"When you have a giant canon for the big ones, sure." Garrus answered.

"Pff…" Their krogan team member scoffed. "Killing shit from the Mako is boring. Real fun is when you can smash their little glowing heads."

"Yes well, getting them from the tank is also less likely to get you killed."

"But it's way more interesting, Garrus." Kira agreed with Wrex and turned towards the turian, who was shaking his head. "And going on foot requires more strategy, right? You don't just ride into a group of flashlights and start shooting."

"Sniping them sure requires careful thought, but running up to them with a shotgun? How is that different?" _Is he joking?_ Kira wasn't sure. The comms didn't carry over subharmonics well enough for her to tell and she couldn't see Garrus through his helmet.

She chose to believe he was indeed using humor. _Here it goes. Hope I don't make him hate me during the first goddamned mission._

"You're just hiding behind a wall while I get in between machines that want to kill me. Who needs more thinking done?" She replied, no venom behind her voice, just a light touch of humor.

"Maybe you should re-think that strategy then." _Alright, he's definitely joking now. Phew. At least I didn't piss him off._

"Hey, guys, play nice." Kira's mother apparently didn't get the joking behind their quips. Or she just wanted them to zip it. "We have a mission to complete."

The group moved to the opposite gatehouse. It had the exact same set up as the previous one, again with a single geth blocking their path. They took care of it quickly and Jane opened the gate that blocked their way forward.

All four of them got back into the Mako and they started driving through the lava fields again. On their way they killed a couple dozen more geth, including a couple of really big ones, but it was all done with the tank's canon.

After a while, they arrived at a stone wall, blocking their way. It was too thick to blow through with the canon, so they decided to continue on foot.

"Finally, we can smash some geth ourselves." Wrex was overjoyed. _For an old krogan he gets excited really easily._ Kira also couldn't wait to do some more fighting, but she kept her thoughts to herself.

"The dig site is showing close to here. Let's hope T'Soni is over there." Jane was in full mission mode.

"Judging by the increasing amount of geth," Kira started. "there is definitely **something** there." It got a couple of chuckles.

The group continued up a hill. After a few hundred meters, their radars got jammed. That's when the real fighting begun.

 **A/N: I'm so grateful to all of you who read and review this piece of work. Sadly, since I'm starting a move in a couple of days, the chapters will have to slow down to a bi-weekly schedule for a while. There is simply no way I'll be able to write and edit 1 chapter a week, and my Internet connection will be spotty. Sorry :(**


	10. Chapter 10 - Countless Geth

The geth seemed to be endless, at least to Kira. The ground team was climbing up the hill and fighting the machines for almost half an hour. Herself and Wrex were both flinging the geth across the battlefield, while the Commander and Garrus covered their more reckless squadmates with sniper rifles.

After a just few minutes of fighting Kira realized that she fell into some sort of a combat rhythm. She hummed some of her favorite songs while she shot as many geth as she could with her shotgun. She swished across the battlefield with her charge, pulled and threw the geth around, even set up a few singularities.

Even if they haven't planned it, Garrus seemed to get the ones she didn't see, while Jane mostly covered Wrex's back. The unsaid strategy worked well and Kira wondered if the others were aware of it happening.

 _They have to be, right? Things are going too well for it to be all accidental._

She knew her mother was a great strategist. She probably had this all planned out before it happened.

They started getting over the second mountain, when a bullet from behind her grazed Kira's shields. She briefly turned around and saw a geth she hasn't noticed go down to the ground. She looked up and saw Garrus' rifle trained on it. _Nice shot._

"Keep your bullets away from my armor, Vakarian." She joked as she turned back to the fight and shot another two flashlight-heads in their… heads. _No need to let his ego get too big, right? Earlier he did appreciate this kind of humor, so it should be good now too._

"If you paid more attention to your surroundings, I wouldn't have to watch your six." Garrus' voice came through her headset. _So he **is** consciously keeping an eye on me._

"Guys, more killing geth, less talking about it." Jane reprimanded, as she hacked a geth trooper to help them for a few seconds.

"Yes, ma'am!" Kira laughed over the comm and continued fighting the machines. She decided she hated the climby-snipery ones. She couldn't charge up to them and they jumped out of range of her shotgun too quickly for her to react. It was up to her mother and Garrus to take them down, while herself and Wrex took care of the normal ground units.

A few dozen meters before the mountain's top the geth stopped coming towards them. _Suspicious. Did they run out of scrap metal to create themselves?_

Her unasked question got answered as they finished climbing up the big hill. From the sky came a geth dropship and from it fell a lot of new enemies, including a big, tank-like creature. "Oh… shit! What is that thing?"

"An Armature." The Commander responded. "Stay in cover, it's slow, but one hit from that blue ball of energy and you're gone."

"I wasn't planning on just walking into it." Kira rolled her eyes, behind the visor of her helmet. "This is just great." She sighed as she run up to a metal wall. The rest also took cover behind various sturdy pieces of metal and rock.

"Giving up, kid?" Wrex asked, as he switched from his shotgun to the assault rifle. "Maybe you should have brought something bigger than the peashooter on your hip."

"Very funny, Wrex." But he was right. Kira's shotgun didn't have enough range to get the big geth tank from the front. "We can't get it from here, can we?"

"The Commander and I could with the sniper rifles, but not while under fire. It takes too long to line up the shot, our shields won't take it." Garrus was hiding behind a bloody red rock formation.

"Shit." The Spectre stated. _Really eloquent, mum._ "We need some kind of a distraction."

"How long does this thing take to turn around? If me and Wrex can charge behind it, we could get it from there." Kira knew it was dangerous, but what else could they do? They were pinned down.

The smaller geth were constantly shooting at them, even if they couldn't hit anyone, they still prevented the team from even peaking from their covers.

"You won't take it down in time." Garrus quickly commented. 'It's shields are too strong. Shotguns only won't do enough damage this quickly." Kira wondered how much info his visor was feeding him and how much he just knew from experience. He seemed to have a very analytic approach to all the fighting.

"Then we overload them." You could hear the cogs working in the Commander's head. Just one impulse and Jane started speaking a mile a minute. _Not quite the salarian speed, but still freaking fast._ "We take down as many of the small ones as we can. Garrus, when you see an opening, overload the Armature's shield. Then, Kira, Wrex, you charge up behind it and at the same time I overload it again. That should take off the shield. You two can finish him off."

"Yes ma'am!" They all said in unison.

Taking care of the smaller geth was easier said than done. They had to take pot shots from behind cover for a couple of minutes, before enough geth were dead or damaged for them to be able to stick their head out of cover. Each of them then took down a few more.

With just 3 or 4 left, this was their opening. They all saw it and Garrus reacted. His overload didn't shut the shield down completely, but it started to flicker. Kira and Wrex got their biotics ready for a charge and when the Commander yelled "Now!" they got out of cover and stormed through the air.

When they stopped, the Armature's shield was already taken down by Jane and the krogan started unloading his shotgun at its back. Kira followed soon after. Sparks flew from the cables getting torn to pieces as the giant pile of metal tried to turn around. It didn't even make it half way before it laid on the ground, smoke coming from its surface.

The whole team breathed a sigh of relief and quickly dealt with the remaining normal-sized geth.

"Good job guys." The older Shepard said and tuned toward what looked like a mine entrance. "Let's get inside and find the doctor, I've had enough of red rock and lava for today."

"Great idea." Kira was breathing heavily, so after she said it, she closed off her comm. There was no point in worrying her mother with a little tiredness. The young woman used more biotics today than any other day before. That, coupled with adrenaline and excitement with her first mission, and running up a mountain had her panting.

As the group moved into the ruined mine, the younger Shepard tried to even out her breathing. She was mostly successful, but the amount of sweat piling on her forehead was… troubling. But she needed to get past it.

 _I need to be a goddamned adult and deal with it. I'm a bit spent, but we have a mission to finish and geth to kill._

There was no way she was going to be a burden on the team, just because she was **tired**.


	11. Chapter 11 - Nice to meet you, dr T'Soni

The tunnel leading down under the mountain was way too narrow for Kira's liking. She wasn't claustrophobic per se, but she wasn't a fan of tight spaces either. Not to mention that fighting in such a limited environment would be hell.

"How far down does this thing go?" She asked out loud. _Please end soon, please._

The mineshaft had an atmosphere regulator, so they could take off their helmets and not rely on their comms for conversations.

"The scanner indicates that we're 450 meters under the mountain, but I think we're only 100 below ground level." Garrus answered, _not really helpfully._

"Awesome." Kira rolled her eyes at the turian.

"You have a problem with tight places, kid?" Wrex asked her, a bit of mocking in his voice.

Kira snorted. "I'm just not a fan of getting crushed under a shit-ton of rocks, in case anything goes to shit."

They made a right turn and saw a door. _Please let the descent from hell end, pretty please._

To Kira's joy, when the door opened, they stepped into a giant rock chamber. _Yes! Finally, some room to breathe._ She took in a deep breath.

They were at what seemed to be the top level of a metal scaffolding. At the end of the walkway, there was some sort of a chamber, but it was obscured by what looked like a biotic barrier.

Bad news came right after they made a couple of steps. Their combat scanner got jammed, which could only mean one thing. "Geth!" The Commander shouted and the team took cover behind metal panels along the catwalk railing.

They took quick care of the few machines that attacked them, including a few flying drones. _We're good at this. And honestly? Shooting them is fun. Real fun._

Kira and her mother went ahead to check out the blue barrier, while Wrex and Garrus covered their backs. It was not biotic of origin, more like some electricity powered force field. After that, the whole team made their way to an elevator, which brought them down a level.

"All this sterile white, those Protheans sure knew how to build things homely." Wrex grumbled as the lift swished down.

"It would do better with some art. Or maybe colorful plants." Kira commented. In truth, she was fine with the décor here, she wasn't much of a vibrant colors and patterns person.

"Or how about some pyjak blood on the walls, right? That would fit." The krogan didn't seem to grasp the concept of room decoration. _Or maybe this is how krogans do it?_

The older Shepard rolled her eyes at them. "Are you two seriously discussing how to decorate the battlefield in art, plants and blood?"

"We're just trying not to die of boredom in this world's-slowest elevator, mum."

At Kira's comment, Garrus finally joined the conversation. "Not by far. The ones on the Citadel are way worse."

Just as he spoke, the metal box came to a stop on a second from the top catwalk level. Still no dr. T'Soni in sight.

As they walked out of the elevator, another group of geth drones attacked them. They were easy enough to kill. At the end of the metal scaffolding there was yet another lift, again going down.

"This makes sense." Kira started. "The Citadel has a shit-ton of elevators and it's also a Prothean ruin. Only fitting that this was their empire-wide design strategy." Her comment got a few snorts out of the team.

They were going down for a few seconds, when the elevator screeched and sparks went flying while the lift stopped over some rubble.

"Everyone in one piece?" The Commander asked her companions. When all of them nodded, she said "Alright, time to climb down, turn the mag-boots on."

As they climbed down, a female voice called out. "Uhh… hello? Is somebody there? Could you help me? Please?"

They didn't have a visual yet, but since Kira's translator has been switched off for the languages she understood, she immediately let her squadmates know who the voice belonged to. "It's an asari. Wanna bet it's our doctor?"

"It sound like it's coming from below." Jane nodded absentmindedly. "Let's get down there and speak with her."

The way down included a drop, which Kira cheekily softened with her biotics, knowing the rest would just have to take it on their joints. _Yes, I'm showing off, sue me. My mother needs to see how much I've learned over the years._

They ended up on the same level as the asari who called out to them. There was just one problem. The blue woman was behind the barrier. To add insult to injury, she seemed stuck in some sort of a bubble. _Things just got weirder. And more complicated, as a professional might say._

As the team approached the force field, the Commander leading the way, the asari spoke again. "Can you hear me out there? I'm trapped, I need help."

Jane answered with a question. "Liara T'Soni, I presume?"

The asari's face formed a grimace. She looked to her left and whatever she saw made her head drop a little, seemingly in defeat. After a beat she looked back to the party. "I can't understand what you're saying. I don't have my translator on, I didn't think I'd need it in an abandoned ruin." She sighed deeply. "I got my name from that, and yes, I'm Liara."

Kira's mother turned around to face her. "Well, time to shine, kiddo." She indicated the asari with her head.

 _Wow. Wow. First mission and I have to use my language skills. Honestly, I didn't think they'd ever come in handy, except for showing off to people. Go on, Kira, just translate what mum says._

She stepped up to the front, side by side with her mother. "It's okay." She said to Liara in asari. "I can translate."

"Thank the Goddess!" The woman was visibly relieved to not have a very one-sided conversation. "Listen, this thing I'm in is a Prothean security device. I can't move, so I need you to get me out of it, please."

"How did you end up in there?' The Commander asked and Kira translated.

"I was exploring the ruin, when the geth showed up, so I hid in here. I activated the tower's defenses, I knew the barrier curtains would keep them out. When I turned it on, I must've hit something I wasn't supposed to. I was trapped in here. You must get me out, please."

"Not so fast." Jane held up her hand. Kira decided to just be as interactive as the device sitting in her ear, so she simply repeated the same words in asari, without any gesticulation. "Your mother is currently working for Saren, who's side are you on?"

"What?" Liara's eyes darted between the humans speaking with her. "I'm not on anybody's side. I'm nothing like my mother and I haven't spoken with her in years. I know nothing of what she's up to. Please, just get me out of here."

"I'm not sure I believe that…" The N7 started but as she realized that Kira was waiting for her to continue she made up her mind quickly. "Fine, we'll find some way to help you."

 _Should I translate the first part? Mum will know if I don't. I trust this woman, I can hear the fear in her voice. But I'm not in charge here, and 'The Commander' told me to translate everything._ So she did.

The asari nodded her thanks and warned the team of a krogan, supposedly working with the geth.

"That should be fun." Their own krogan commented, as the squad went down some more catwalks. They finally reached the bottom of the chasm. "Any of you ever fought one of my people before?"

"Working at C-Sec, you barely have a week without some krogan stirring trouble." Garrus brushed off the question with a scoff.

"You know I did, Wrex, you were with me when we stormed Chora's Den." The older Shepard didn't even look towards the krogan as she answered. _Damn, how can she stay so focused all the time?_

"Alright, I may have been mostly wondering about the kid." Wrex shrugged his shoulders in a surprisingly human gesture.

"I had a krogan friend in the Academy, we sparred occasionally, when the teachers weren't looking." _Please don't think I'm a wuss._

"So you haven't." The krogan said simply.

"No I haven't." Kira snapped back at him. "But until today I also haven't even seen a geth and I didn't have much problem in killing them, did I? So just cut the-" She didn't get a chance to finish her sentence and a sniper shot rang out and almost pierced her barrier.

The crew immediately darted for cover. "Great, they're jamming our sensors again." Garrus called out.

They could see the snipers' targeting lasers looking for them. Kira kept glancing around the rock she was hiding behind, trying to find a moment to charge. "I can get over there and distract them while you take your shots." She told her mother and Garrus. "If I charge one of the snipers, they should turn around to get me, it'll give you an opening."

"Alright." The Commander agreed. "Wrex, you're with Kira, draw their fire, myself and Vakarian will take down the snipers."

They all mumbled "Yes ma'am" and set out to work.

Kira was the first to move out of cover, as she finally could see one of the sniper-wielding geth. She charged across the cavern, leaving a light blue trail behind her. As she came out of the charge, she hit the machine over its flashlight head with the butt of her shotgun to stun it. She quickly rolled out of the way and soon heard the sound of a bullet piercing the geth, killing it immediately.

 _Good shot._ She turned around to see the rest of the battlefield. The other sniper was also lying on the ground. Left were a few shock troopers. Wrex was already in the process of giving them some more holes in their synthetic bodies.

She saw an opportunity in a geth that her mother had just biotically warped. Kira charged again, this time setting of a biotic explosion, that threw back another machine standing close. She didn't get to finish that one off, as Jane took it down with her sniper rifle.

Instead, Kira switched her attention to a couple of troopers that had their shields down, probably from Garrus' overload. She shot them with her shotgun in a quick succession, coming close to overheating her own weapon. When it was on the verge, she stopped and instead biotically pushed one of the geth into the other.

The machines collided in a mess of cables and Kira had a quick time ending their existence with a few shots.

After that, the fight was over. The rest of the geth were down and the team was left to peacefully figure out how to get Liara from behind the barrier.

Or maybe peacefully was the wrong word to use, as The Commander's attention turned to the giant mining laser aimed at the bottom of the Prothean tower…


End file.
